nook tablet unboxing & hands on

[abaez]

wrong thread

 

[shortylickens]

OK, been playing with the Nook all afternoon. Its a little faster and smoother, especially when using the web. Was ticked about the 11 gig reserve. But with an SD slot thats not too huge an issue. And its not like I'm actually losing 11 gigs, its just that I can only do specific things with it.

I like that theres more and better settings to adjust, including interface stuff like the layout style and wallpaper and such. Netflix is better and HD, of course the display cant show true HD but shrunk HD is better than pixelated SD, which is what the Fire gives me.
Of course with Amazon I have access to all my Prime videos. Will have to figure out how to install Amazon apps on the Nook. I'd like to have access to the 100 plus things I've already got through them.

The layout for the Nook is a little more plain, not so "cute" but perfectly functional. I do not like that they need a credit card just to download free apps and books and magazines. Thats damn annoying.
Email and such is equally good on both. Reading books and mags on both is fine, but of course Amazon has about 400,000 free books, I didnt see anything like that from Barnes and Noble.
The design of the Fire's body is better than the Nook, but since its lacking important stuff like volume rockers and an SD slot, I really dont care too much about aesthetics.

So basically I agree with everyone else. Amazon has the superior ecosystem right now, but Barnes & Noble currently has the overall best device. Since its unlikely B&N will make drastic improvements in their service any time soon, and Amazon is not planning to release a new high-end tablet any time soon, I dont think I will get a perfect platform. At least not for a while.

Am seriously considering returning both and waiting for something more to my liking.
Still got my Netbook which is faster, has loads more storage, and runs standard desktop apps. Its also better for school cuz I can log into the secured wifi and use heavy Flash based websites like Pearson education.

 

[shortylickens]

Oh, the Android market for each is severely gimped so rooting and/or sideloading is going to be a requirement. On the Nook whenever I search the app market for something it keeps shoving books and magazines down my throat, which is damn annoying. No way to filter that I can find.

 

[Bateluer]

Email and such is equally good on both. Reading books and mags on both is fine, but of course Amazon has about 400,000 free books, I didnt see anything like that from Barnes and Noble.

Bloody hell, its like I'm talking to a wall sometimes.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Free-eBooks/379003078/

And that doesn't include the books from other sources, Project Gutenberg/etc, that you can read on the nooks because of their wider format support.

So basically I agree with everyone else. Amazon has the superior ecosystem right now, but Barnes & Noble currently has the overall best device. Since its unlikely B&N will make drastic improvements in their service any time soon, and Amazon is not planning to release a new high-end tablet any time soon, I don't think I will get a perfect platform. At least not for a while.

As I've pointed out before, several times, in fact, Barnes and Noble actually has a larger ebook/e-zine collection than Amazon.

 

[shortylickens]

Bloody hell, its like I'm talking to a wall sometimes.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Free-eBooks/379003078/

And that doesn't include the books from other sources, Project Gutenberg/etc, that you can read on the nooks because of their wider format support.



As I've pointed out before, several times, in fact, Barnes and Noble actually has a larger ebook/e-zine collection than Amazon.

I think when you saw "ecosystem" you assumed "just books".
You were wrong if thats what you thought.

 

[wirednuts]

if you cant root the nook, then it will be a total failure. why would anyone buy a tablet that you cant put good software on it? not to mention you are severely limiting its MTBLI (mean time between loss of interest). no locked down device lasts longer then the company who made it keeps updating the software (which is never more then 2 years).

look at my touch pro 2... its a 3 year old phone, and if i had to run the stock firmware i would throw this thing in the trash. but since its rootable, and there are some really awesome cooks out there, this phone is damn near as good as an iphone4.

im sure b&n would love for people to just buy a new tablet every couple years, but tablets are not a must-have device. they are a toy. good luck on getting people to constantly throw money into them.

 

[BladeVenom]

Casual and moms will buy the Amazon Fire. Positive word of mouth reviews and recs from the geeks and modders was the only hope for Nook vs Fire.

The only reason the original color Nook was a success was due to the hackers.

The Nook Color is the best selling Android tablet. It's biggest customer was women, not hackers.

 

[BladeVenom]

if you cant root the nook, then it will be a total failure. why would anyone buy a tablet that you cant put good software on it?

Did you read this article? http://liliputing.com/2011/11/how-t...ok-tablet-amazon-appstore-go-launcher-ex.html
Did you watch the video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKGi0VIrb_M
See you can even use Amazon's stuff on the Nook Tablet.

 

[wirednuts]

Did you read this article? http://liliputing.com/2011/11/how-t...ok-tablet-amazon-appstore-go-launcher-ex.html
Did you watch the video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKGi0VIrb_M
See you can even use Amazon's stuff on the Nook Tablet.

ok i did miss that. i was just going by what people were saying in this thread. still, i dont know if i would want a non-rootable device for the reasons i stated. maybe something like the nook can be an exception though, if it basically is a real android tablet already

 

[manly]

Did you read this article? http://liliputing.com/2011/11/how-t...ok-tablet-amazon-appstore-go-launcher-ex.html
Did you watch the video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKGi0VIrb_M
See you can even use Amazon's stuff on the Nook Tablet.

that's nice, but slightly troublesome for the average non-technical Joe. The vast majority of consumers are going with the out of box experience instead of sideloading APKs. Today, the only "app stores" that matter are iTunes, Google's and Amazon. I'll save a #4 spot for Microsoft, but anybody else thinking they should roll their own is doomed to failure.

NOOK Color was a bit of a special case because the mainstream press (NYT, etc.) widely reported that people should hack the device into a poor man's iPad. There's no way to say how many extra sales that information generated.

Latest guesstimates are up to 5M Kindle Fires and up to 2M NOOK Tablets sold during this holiday quarter, both very good numbers. But that means Amazon nearly caught up to B&N in its first 6 weeks, despite the B&N having a full year edge. B&N needs to be doing everything in its power to get consumers to commit, whereas Amazon arguably just needs to stay the course. I'm looking forward to a rumored KF with an 8.9" screen down the road as I never buy version 1.0 products.

 

[Bateluer]

I think when you saw "ecosystem" you assumed "just books".
You were wrong if thats what you thought.

Okay, lets break it down.

Books: Win to B&N due to larger collection.

Magazines: Win to B&N due to larger collection.

Movies: Slight edge to Amazon due to choice. Both have access to Netflix and Hulu, provided the person has an active account. Amazon Prime also requires a subscription, while having a smaller selection that NetFlix/Hulu. Realistically, both are pretty equal since most people aren't going to want to maintain three separate subscriptions. Since Netflix/Hulu work on pretty much any device, those are the ones people are going to keep.

Appstore: Equal. Amazon's appstore is a carbon copy of Android Market, except it runs slower, handles updates poorly, integrates with Android Market poorly, and has ~5% of the content that Android Market does. B&N's NookApp store is younger, and still growing, but only exists on the Nook Color and Nook Tablet. It covers the basics, web browser, email, social networking, etc. Neither have the full power of the Android Market with sideloading/rooting or otherwise using aftermarket modification.

This 'ecosystem' you keep referring to, doesn't actually exist. And on the market places that these devices are really geared for, reading books/e-zines/web surfing, the Nook Tablet wins out on every point except pricing. You get more product for that extra money, but the Fire is cheaper.

I'm basing these statements on the devices as they stand now, however, before any community modification, because the hacking/modding community is not a significant market. If every hacker refused to buy either tablet and didn't generate any press on either, their sales wouldn't be impacted in any meaningful way.

As we've all seen, web browsing on the Fire is considerably laggier than other tablet browsers, despite Amazon hyping the Silk browser as a major feature. I don't doubt that incoming updates will address that though. From what I've read on the twitter feed, at least one update has already been pushed.

 

[lothar]

Sales tax kills the deal. That's huge advantage for Amazon on a item that's competing on price. $199 vs $270.

Order it on Amazon.com

 

[Zaap]

I hope you guys are right about the Nook's success. I want it to be a big success, because more competition and more of these tablets at all price points means future products can only get better.

Maybe the techie crowd is insignificant as a percentage of sales, but I just don't get why try to purposefully foil them? The mom-types will just buy the device and never even think about altering it in any significant way, so you're not locking the bootloader on their behalf.

If the techie numbers are so insignificant that their business doesn't effect your bottom line, then why bother going to any lengths to foil them?

Personally, I think it's because B&N knows that there actually are a LOT of people that are just average tech-users that would follow simple root instructions provided by others if given the chance. I'm one of them- I'm no uber-tech hacker type. I don't really know anything about 'rooting' a device. But I can follow a simple set of instructions provided by someone else showing me how to do it, and explaining what the benefits are. I believe there are many, many people just like that, and B&N knows it.

People who would root or ROM would install the Android or Amazon market, but very few would purposefully load any kind of B&N store. So rather than compete by actually making it as desirable as the others, B&N have to fall back on forcing its use by holding your memory hostage. While I hope for the Nook's overall success, I hope that particular tactic backfires on them.

One question of anyone that has a Nook Tablet: I see videos with GoLauncher installed- but with a screen full of icons that make for a bigger waste of screen space than iOS on an iPad. Can you use widgets with GoLauncher? If so, do most work as expected? How about live wallpapers?

 

[Andrmgic]

Seeing as amazon's video portion of the Kindle fire is just an app.. and it runs perfectly on the nook tablet, I'd say that's another of amazon's advantages down the tube with no hacking involved.

What I really want is an ice cream sandwich rom, though..

hopefully some devs will pick up this device soon and bust it wide open.

 

[bonkers325]

I hope you guys are right about the Nook's success. I want it to be a big success, because more competition and more of these tablets at all price points means future products can only get better.

Maybe the techie crowd is insignificant as a percentage of sales, but I just don't get why try to purposefully foil them? The mom-types will just buy the device and never even think about altering it in any significant way, so you're not locking the bootloader on their behalf.

If the techie numbers are so insignificant that their business doesn't effect your bottom line, then why bother going to any lengths to foil them?

Personally, I think it's because B&N knows that there actually are a LOT of people that are just average tech-users that would follow simple root instructions provided by others if given the chance. I'm one of them- I'm no uber-tech hacker type. I don't really know anything about 'rooting' a device. But I can follow a simple set of instructions provided by someone else showing me how to do it, and explaining what the benefits are. I believe there are many, many people just like that, and B&N knows it.

People who would root or ROM would install the Android or Amazon market, but very few would purposefully load any kind of B&N store. So rather than compete by actually making it as desirable as the others, B&N have to fall back on forcing its use by holding your memory hostage. While I hope for the Nook's overall success, I hope that particular tactic backfires on them.

One question of anyone that has a Nook Tablet: I see videos with GoLauncher installed- but with a screen full of icons that make for a bigger waste of screen space than iOS on an iPad. Can you use widgets with GoLauncher? If so, do most work as expected? How about live wallpapers?

you can use widgets. Go Launcher also supports scrollable widgets. you can also change the grid density to 8x8, which means you can fit a lot more icons and widgets into a screen.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Looks like eFuse locked bootloader has been confirmed:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1349264

I really wanted to get a Nook Tablet over a Kindle Fire because the hardware is so much better, but it looks like that's not going to happen. Now I'm debating whether I should even bother with a Kindle Fire or wait for something else to come out.

My question is, if custom ROM junkies are so insignificant, then why would B&N go out of their way to lock down the device? Why would Amazon make it so easy to sideload apps? I'm not saying that gadget people are a huge part of their market but they're not insignificant either.

 

[Andrmgic]

I'm going to return mine, I think.

I can always re-purchase later.. but BN only has a 14 day return policy.. and the idea of getting my $270 is pretty tempting..

 

[bonkers325]

just rooted my Nook Tablet and installed adfree. that alone is worth the rooting effort!

 

[zerocool84]

It seems more average people have already heard about the Fire than the new Nook. Many more people go to amazon.com than barnesandnoble.com and their stores.

 

[Doppel]

Played with one for 10-15 at barnes and noble today. I first played with a nook color and thought it was quite slow and wondered what I was missing, until I found the tablet, which looks the same! Watched some hulu and some other video, no issues. Went to CNN, loaded quite quickly. The pinch-zooming is a little stuttery, but it's really mild (much better than the Fire's in the original engadget review, though comparing my experience with a reviewer's is not apples to apples).

 

[randomlinh]

Okay, lets break it down.

Books: Win to B&N due to larger collection.

Magazines: Win to B&N due to larger collection.

Movies: Slight edge to Amazon due to choice. Both have access to Netflix and Hulu, provided the person has an active account. Amazon Prime also requires a subscription, while having a smaller selection that NetFlix/Hulu. Realistically, both are pretty equal since most people aren't going to want to maintain three separate subscriptions. Since Netflix/Hulu work on pretty much any device, those are the ones people are going to keep.

Appstore: Equal. Amazon's appstore is a carbon copy of Android Market, except it runs slower, handles updates poorly, integrates with Android Market poorly, and has ~5% of the content that Android Market does. B&N's NookApp store is younger, and still growing, but only exists on the Nook Color and Nook Tablet. It covers the basics, web browser, email, social networking, etc. Neither have the full power of the Android Market with sideloading/rooting or otherwise using aftermarket modification.

This 'ecosystem' you keep referring to, doesn't actually exist. And on the market places that these devices are really geared for, reading books/e-zines/web surfing, the Nook Tablet wins out on every point except pricing. You get more product for that extra money, but the Fire is cheaper.

I'm basing these statements on the devices as they stand now, however, before any community modification, because the hacking/modding community is not a significant market. If every hacker refused to buy either tablet and didn't generate any press on either, their sales wouldn't be impacted in any meaningful way.

As we've all seen, web browsing on the Fire is considerably laggier than other tablet browsers, despite Amazon hyping the Silk browser as a major feature. I don't doubt that incoming updates will address that though. From what I've read on the twitter feed, at least one update has already been pushed.

How much do you think amazon's mp3 ecosystem factor in? Lots of folks buy from there now, and it certainly isn't a negative point to have their music "on" their Fire out of the box.

Not to mention Amazon's name, that will push a lot of sales alone, heh.

 

[fumanstan0]

Appstore: Equal. Amazon's appstore is a carbon copy of Android Market, except it runs slower, handles updates poorly, integrates with Android Market poorly, and has ~5% of the content that Android Market does. B&N's NookApp store is younger, and still growing, but only exists on the Nook Color and Nook Tablet. It covers the basics, web browser, email, social networking, etc. Neither have the full power of the Android Market with sideloading/rooting or otherwise using aftermarket modification.

I don't see how the Appstore is equal. Edge is Amazon's there given the number of apps, let alone the free app a day. If you're an existing Android user and have been picking up apps, that's a huge plus.

 

[gorcorps]

I don't see how the Appstore is equal. Edge is Amazon's there given the number of apps, let alone the free app a day. If you're an existing Android user and have been picking up apps, that's a huge plus.

How could you give the edge to Amazon by number of apps? I have never, EVER ran into an app that amazon had and the real market didn't... but there are many apps that the main market has that Amazon doesn't. Plus it's quite well known that the amazon version and market version of the apps are separate, so you can't update until your market gets the update. And in the case of cross market apps, the REAL market is getting those updates first.

 

[zerocool84]

How could you give the edge to Amazon by number of apps? I have never, EVER ran into an app that amazon had and the real market didn't... but there are many apps that the main market has that Amazon doesn't. Plus it's quite well known that the amazon version and market version of the apps are separate, so you can't update until your market gets the update. And in the case of cross market apps, the REAL market is getting those updates first.

I think he's comparing B&N Apps to Amazon Apps.

 

[Zaap]

How could you give the edge to Amazon by number of apps? I have never, EVER ran into an app that amazon had and the real market didn't...

Um, I thought the comparison was to the NookApp, not the 'real' Market.

Anyway, so far where I work I've talked to 3 people who bought the Kindle Fire. Not a single Nook buyer. And these are 'somewhat' tech-savvy people. (Also I know of one other non-tech savy person who bought the Fire and didn't even know what a Nook was.)

Anecdotal, sure, and the Nook tablet wasn't out when most of these people heard about the Kindle Fire and decided they wanted one. But on the other hand, one could argue that the Nook should have even more traction because the Nook Color has been out a lot longer.